# Bill Nye, the DevRel Guy

In [our Twitter Space today](https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1550575614264020992) about DevRel content strategy, we were chatting with [Justin Garrison](https://twitter.com/rothgar/status/1550578607172378624) (devrel at AWS) on his video content strategy:

> We shifted into native YouTube content for the couple years during the pandemic... and then I did 10 short videos and **I got more views on the short videos that we got in 2 years of the other existing content**.

That series was called [Container Shorts](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLehXSATXjcQHGYufa__n1y9WIUZjyNMEw), which look like this:

%[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBbc8BU6nmA&list=PLehXSATXjcQHGYufa__n1y9WIUZjyNMEw&index=1]

Then I realized that Justin does something very differently from most developer content creators:

**He uses props.**

Then I realized that this is a pattern Justin does. Here he is doing an entire talk *sitting on an AWS Snowball*:

%[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hULomz2FU40&feature=youtu.be]

Most notably, if you watch the video from the start, he starts the talk sitting on the Snowball **BUT NOT TALKING ABOUT IT ALL** until about 6 minutes into the video. Because it is so unusual for a speaker to *sit down on an unexplained box* while speaking, my attention was held for the entire time, with the inherent unanswered question: **[WHAT'S IN THE BOX](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1giVzxyoclE)?**

And then he stands up and starts moving them around and you cannot take your eyes away. *That's a real machine? It's like a 16xl? 42 terabytes of storage? and you're just manhandling them around on stage?* 

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1658535261169/OWe0rrW9o.png align="center")

At one point to illustrate resilience, he actually *knocks these expensive AWS Snowball machines over on stage*.

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1658535296054/QzDvSRFqs.png align="center")

Completely unnecessary.

Totally captivating.

Back to Justin on our Twitter Space:

> "I always like to teach the way I like to learn... and I grew up watching Bill Nye the Science Guy, and **I loved his content because it was so extreme and weird with lots of props and visual aids.** So I just do that - I look around the room for something that can represent the thing that I want to teach people, and I take that to my backyard and film it."

**Props.** Who woulda thunk it? Maybe we could all get DevRel ideas from Bill Nye.

%[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJVPOTv1O7k&list=PLgeJ6bGP6EDmwZYjIGpjdha7W5kaimtQr]

P.S. He had other tips to share:

- Most of his short video views came from reposting to **LinkedIn**, not TikTok or YouTube.
- Having people ask their own questions is better than giving them answers.

You can listen to the rest of our DevRel space [here](https://share.transistor.fm/s/d5969f48).